should fall a prey to the men whom they intended so ignominiously to destroy. Fort Sumter, however, was to be revenged, not one stone was to be left piled on another to mark the spot where the city of Charleston stood, and after its foundations were ploughed up, it was to be sown with salt for four successive years. However, it has been defended by a brave and chivalrous people, and to all human probability would never have yielded to the enemy, had not Gen. Sherman threatened them in the rear, which caused its brave defenders to abandon their fortifications and leave Charleston to its fate.

Richmond also was to be made an example of, and Gen. Lee and his brave army were to be annihilated, but Northern generals and soldiers have hitherto been unable to accomplish this mighty and formidable task. Under M Clellan, Burnside, Hooker, Meade, and Grant, bloody battles have been fought, rivers of blood shed, an army of cripples created, the valley of the Shenandoah turned into the shadow of death, and the pathway to Richmond marked by the graves of soldiers who have fallen in battle; but Gen. Lee, notwithstanding his tremendous losses in men, and his great loss of the brave Stonewall Jackson, still makes the doomed city with his heroic soldiers a place of refuge and a tower of strength whence he hurls destruction on his foes. Vast armies, however, are gathering around Richmond on all sides to make its hills and valleys one vast camp, and cover its rivers with an

immense flotilla of armed men. Gen. Grant elated with the prospect telegraphs that "in a few more days Richmond will be hemmed in, and its fate sealed." Portentous shadows, therefore, exclaim Federal advocates are beginning to stretch themselves over the above city. A great carnival is approaching, in which the angel of death is to cut down Lee and his scarred and sun-tanned veterans, or they are to be formed into a line to await the executive clemency at Washington with halters around their necks for defending their rights of self government which they had been taught to believe encircled their fires, altars, and homes. How fearful the destiny that now seems poised over them in the darkening air around Richmond, the scales of which our Northern invaders claim are to decide the future of the vast continent of America in their own favour. Amidst the rejoicings, however, created by Gen. Grant's telegram in the North, a warning voice is heard, which shewed that Southern sympathizers clung to hope against hope, as they proclaimed comfort for the South.

A HISTORICAL PARALLEL.

The New York Daily News thus cautions those ardent men among the Federals who suppose that the end of the rebellion has come :—

The opposing armies of the South and of the North are now manoeuvring on classic ground; and although the analogies of the past prove

nothing, they are sufficiently impressive to be worth recalling. The irregular triangle of South Carolina, from the Savannah River to the Northern boundary, long ago was watered with blood and trodden by armed feet. A "rebel" army was once hemmed in close to the mountain range, cut off from every seaport, and yet came off victorious. Let us, bearing in mind the relative positions and probable strategy of the adverse forces now, briefly retrace the past. At the end of 1778, Savannah was taken by the British almost without a struggle. In March, 1779, Augusta was captured, and not very long afterwards Charleston, which had successfully resisted assault and siege, was surrendered to Sir Henry Clinton. In succession fell Wilmington and Newbern, and later still, Richmond; so that literally not a foothold on the coast was in the possession of the "rebels" of those days.

Then began the triumphant march of Cornwallis, almost on the track which Sherman is now pursuing. He advanced on Camden, and defeated the "rebels" under Gates. They fled in disorder to North Carolina, as far as Hillsborough; and a recent historian thus describes the desperate state of things; "The three most Southern States," says Mr Hildreth, "had not a single battalion in the field, nor were the next three better provided. The Virginia line had been mostly captured at Charleston, or dispersed in subsequent engagements. The same was the case with North Carolina regiments. The recent battle of Camden

had reduced the Maryland line to a single regiment, the Delaware line to a single company." Then it

was that General Greene was put in command, his right hand man and main reliance being Henry Lee of Virginia, Washington's friend and Robert E. Lee's illustrious father. And what did such men say and think? of despair.

It was an hour of gloom but not

The same serene faith shone in their words as now brightens in the heroic language of the Confederate leaders. But we repeat, it was a day of sharp trial. "Unless this army," wrote General Greene, "is better supported than I see any prospect of, the country is lost beyond redemption, for it is impossible to struggle much longer under present difficulties." "If the French," he said again, “cannot afford assistance to the Southern States, in my opinion there will be no opposition this side Virginia; and I expect the enemy will possess all the lower country. We must take possession and fight on the rivers above." Thus desperate was this "rebel" cause in May, 1781. Then came the reflux of the tide. The assailing army advanced as far as Salisbury in North Carolina-one hundred and fifty miles further north than Sherman is now. Lord Rawdon and Tarleton were raiding in the rear. Richmond was given up to Arnold. But the energy of a brave people was aroused in the defence of home even in the moment of discomfiture and dismay. A great flank movement was conceived and executed. The lines of

the invader were threatened both in front and laterally, and the battles of Ninety-six and King's Mountain, the Gowpens, Guildford, and Eutaw were fought and won. South Carolina was abandoned to the rebels, and Cornwallis, crossing to the sea at Wilmington, and then fighting his way by another route to the James, met his doom, and the war ended. These are impressive incidents of ancient days, on which in the flush of apparent success it may be well to meditate.

COAST ATTACKS, AND BLOCKADE.

The blockade by our "Great Armada" so called, has almost shut out the Southern States from the outside world, and must have sadly interfered with their luxuries and necessaries. Our Northern people bitterly complained when the British government recognised the belligerent rights of the South. It, however, could not have performed an act of greater or more signal service to the Federal government, because as Lord Russell in a speech made in the British House of Commons, March 23rd 1865, said, "If we had not acknowledged those rights, the government of the United States would have had no right to interfere with neutral commerce to the ports of the Southern States." In such a case there would have been no "Cotton Famine," or desolate British homes in Lancashire; and the Southern people would not have been so embarassed in their